How to Survive the Credit Crunch in Style by Amy Silver

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How to Survive the Credit Crunch in Style by Amy Silver

Staying stylish in these straitened times is not easy. Sure, we can do the obvious things like waiting for the January sales instead of shopping in December, but remaining fashionable year round without breaking the bank takes a little more cunning.

Swap, don’t shop. Clothes swaps are a great way of updating your wardrobe without spending a fortune – but you need to organise them carefully. Your friends need not have an identical sense of style, but mixing high powered City types with stay-at-home mums is probably not going to work. Size may be an issue, too: be sensitive. If your friends do come in all shapes and sizes, it might be best to stick to an accessories swap instead.

If you’d rather not wear the cast-offs of your nearest and dearest, go global. Websites such as swapstyle.com allow you to exchange clothes, accessories and shoes with people across the world. All you need to do is sign up, find something you like and then contact the ‘seller’ to negotiate the swap.

Rent, don’t buy. Paying £600 for the season’s must have handbag is just so 2007. Erento, a rental site featuring everything from power tools to diamond necklaces, has bags from Mulberry, Chloe, Gucci and Prada among others. A chocolate Chloe Paddington, which usually sells for just under £800, costs £35 for a week. Or try Handbag Hire HQ has bags from a range of designers, including Fendi, Anya Hindmarch and Dior. My favourite is Balenciaga’s Giant Besace, yours for a month for £90.

Invest wisely. Not everything can be picked up on the cheap. A good coat will cost you, but so long as it is a really good coat, a higher price may be worth paying. Always think about the cost-per-wear: if you love it enough to wear it one hundred days a year, three years running, then it didn’t really cost £350. It cost £1.16 per wear. A bargain.

Second hand need not mean second best. Not all charity shops are depressing places full of musty-smelling suits and porcelain dogs. The good ones are veritable treasure troves for the stylish. A good rule of thumb is to frequent charity shops in posh areas – the richer the neighbourhood, the more fashionable the castoff: go to the Oxfam Boutique in Notting Hill and British Red Cross on Old Church Street in Kensington and you’ll find yourself in vintage heaven. But great charity shops are not a purely west London phenomenon: Alderley Edge in Cheshire, home to various premiership footballers - but more importantly to their Wives and Girlfriends - is a good place to pick up barely-worn Versace or Dolce & Gabbana, for example. Barnado’s Vintage in Edinburgh, Oxfam Vintage in Belfast and Traid in Brighton are also good places to hunt for labels on the cheap.

Get your labels for less. Cyberspace is the obvious place to do this. Fashionistas should try the Outnet, sister site to net-a-porter, which sells the same big-name designers for less. There are also ‘flash sales’ – limited time sales in which you can pick up pieces for just 15 per cent of their original price – and giveaways – register with the site to keep up to date. Portero, a site selling eye-wateringly expensive bags, watches and jewellery also has periodic ‘now or never’ sales.

If your personal fetish is interior design, go to www.bouf.com where you can purchase anything from lamps to bathtubs, direct from the designers. Not everything is cheap – prices range from under £10 to well over £1,000 - but you will find pieces that you cannot get anywhere else. A brilliant place to look for gifts.

Prioritise. If surviving the recession in style is important to you, you may have to make cutbacks elsewhere. Sometimes the answers are obvious: smokers need not think very hard or very long about where they can make savings, for example: if you quit your pack-a-day habit, not only will you have a much better complexion in 12 months time, you will also be £2,106 richer – that’s enough to buy a pair of Louboutin ankle boots and a Chloe wool coat. Skipping your morning latte from Starbucks will save you around £550 a year.

Be sensible with your money. There is nothing more infuriating than being charged late payment fees on your credit card or fined £25 for straying over your overdraft limit. In these days of postal strikes, managing your finances online makes more sense than ever.

Written by Amy Silver

Amy Silver's new book, Confessions of a Reluctant Recessionista, is out now, but until 30th November 2009, you can get your hands on a copy free! Enter the competition here.

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